Cart
|
[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XSLT model not "natural"? [was Re: [ANN] FreeMarke
 Hi, Well, the benefits would be simplicity, that the tool is simply more accessible to people. I assert that more people will become more productive more quickly using FreeMarker (and I mean specifically FM's new XML-transformation capabilities) than with XSLT. However, I am reluctant to enter into a long dissertation as to why I think it would be that way. Whether tool X really is easier for people to become productive with than tool Y is a purely empirical question that can only be resolved by practical experimentation. Moreover, I want people to try it for themselves, so I see no point in launching into a long attempt to explain the benefits.
That's very old FreeMarker code. It uses an older syntax that still works but has been deprecated. In current FM syntax, the above would look more like: <#if session.msg?has_content> <@draw_tooltip/> <#else> </#if> <@draw_icon_rows 5/>
Well, I don't see the angle brackets as being a problem per se. In fact, if you assume that your target audience is at least familiar with HTML, it makes sense to have your template language be HTML-ish. It simply looks familiar and you can initially introduce (via what is admittedly a white lie) various FreeMarker directives as sort of additional HTML tags. In any case, the syntax of a language is really its most superficial aspect. I basically took over the FreeMarker project about 16 months ago and, at that point, it already had a history and its syntax which used the angle brackets. I have been the principal maintainer of the project over the various 2.x release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and now 2.3. 2.3 introduces some interesting XML-related features that I want to get people interested in trying.
Well, this point is really a non-issue, you know. FreeMarker templates are quite unashamedly *not* XML, so there is simply no issue of checking them for well-formedness or validity -- no more than checking whether a perl or java source file is well-formed XML! A FreeMarker template is written in FTL (FreeMarker template language) and must therefore be correct FTL. We have a plugin for the eclipse IDE that works fairly well, for example, that parses FreeMarker files and gives you the line numbers where a parsing error occurred (if one did) and so on. And it tells you where the error is. But by that, I mean an error in FreeMarker syntax.
Yeah, it looks, just from the code snippet you quoted, like they used a very old version of FM, like 1.5.2. As I said earlier, the FreeMarker 2.x releases are the ones that are my fault. Let me state quite clearly that what I am talking about here is entirely new functionality added in the FreeMarker 2.3 cycle for declarative-style XML processing. For example: http://freemarker.org/docs/xgui_declarative_basics.html So, this functionality that I'm telling the list about was not part of the obsolete FreeMarker version which you are familiar with. The language itself was not hard to pick up but the templates were written without understanding of how to separate content/data from presentation. It made trying to modify the templates ridiculously more difficult then it should have been. Perhaps simpler templating languages can be learned faster, but they lead to sloppy work that is next to impossible to reuse. I am not sure of the chain of reasoning above. You seem to be implying that if the HSphere people used XSLT for the same task, they would have had something more maintainable rather than the mess you describe. Why is this so? I put it to you that it is entirely possible that the very same people, had they used XSLT instead of FM would have come up with the same sort of unmaintainable mess. One doesn't know for sure, but that strikes me offhand as the most likely result of the experiment.
Well, that's an interesting claim. My initial reaction is one of great skepticism. By what mechanism does this occur? How does sticking with XSL cause people to be steered towards a more correct design?
Well, the statement of mine that Wendell Piez took issue with was that I asserted that XSLT does not come naturally to most people. You, on the other hand, do seem to be in agreement with my position on this. Regards, Jonathan Revusky -- lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/ New XML-processing features in FM 2.3, http://freemarker.org/docs/xgui.html
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
